Ebony & Ivory sitting in a tree..

A Tale of Two Teachers

I was talking with a friend about the hot new white police officer body slamming the black female student scandal that has recently become the talk of the nation. She and I reached a fundamental disagreement. I should note that she is a black woman. I am a half black, half white, half martian mulatto person. I say that really just for context because our discussion was not really racial. We ignored the racial aspect and just went back and forth about the morality of a police officer body slamming an insubordinate student.

Her perspective.

It’s not okay for someone else to come in and do as much to someone else’s child, especially for just being insubordinate. She did acknowledge that children today don’t have the fear of God that our (millennials and older) parents (the baby boomers) instilled in us. For us as children, there was no such thing as insubordination. The thought of the consequences blocked out the thought of disobeying like the Cowboys’ offensive line.

My perspective.

That point about today’s children lacking discipline seals my point for me. You see, I believe we all have two teachers in life. Metaphorically speaking, one teacher is standing at the front of the classroom asking you to pay attention so you can learn what you need to. That teacher is the collective knowledge of those wiser than you. The other one is the cop that has to come into the classroom and yank you out by any means necessary because you decided you don’t want to fucking listen today. That teacher is experience. That’s the one that will teach you most of the lessons you need to know.

Sometimes he will be gentle. If you don’t learn, sometimes he will make you bleed, but you will heal and hopefully learn. If you do not, he will break you, forcing you to rehabilitate. You will never be the same, though hopefully wiser. If you still don’t learn, he will probably kill you. He is not a fair teacher. Sometimes he kills you first lesson. That’s why it’s best to listen to the teacher at the front of the class so you don’t have to deal with him.

None of this is to say that the police officer did the right thing. As I said, we all have experience for a teacher, and that day he may have learned just how much force you are allowed to use in this new scandal obsessed age of cop filming before you get fired.

Anyway, this is the real question: How would I feel if that was my daughter?

To that I would say thank you, Mr. Officer, for not killing or putting her in the hospital (I am human), and for possibly teaching her a necessary lesson about respect for authority, be that authority the teacher in front of the classroom or the cop who’s not going to deal with your shit today. Hopefully this lesson will be the one that prevents something much worse from happening when she faces this challenge in the future.